Sunday's NYTimes disses Oxfordians

[Tom Reedy]

"The good news is that “Anonymous” makes an extraordinarily poor case
for the Oxfordian theory."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/magazine/wouldnt-it-be-cool-if-shakespeare-wasnt-shakespeare.html?_r=1

Get ready for all the boiler-plate Oxy comments. You read one William
Ray comment, you've read them all.

TR

[Tom Reedy]

On Oct 21, 11:46 am, Tom Reedy <tom.re...@gmail.com> wrote:
> "The good news is that “Anonymous” makes an extraordinarily poor case
> for the Oxfordian theory."
>

> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/magazine/wouldnt-it-be-cool-if-shak...

>
> Get ready for all the boiler-plate Oxy comments. You read one William
> Ray comment, you've read them all.
>
> TR

"The Shakespeare controversy, which emerged in the 19th century (at
that time, theorists proposed that Francis Bacon was Shakespeare), was
one of the origins of the willful ignorance and insidious false
balance that is now rotting away our capacity to have meaningful
discussions. The wider public, which has no reason to be familiar with
questions of either Renaissance chronology or climate science, assumes
that if there are arguments, there must be reasons for those
arguments. Along with a right-wing antielitism, an unthinking left-
wing open-mindedness and relativism have also given lunatic ideas soil
to grow in. Our politeness has actually led us to believe that
everybody deserves a say.

"The problem is that not everybody does deserve a say. Just because an
opinion exists does not mean that the opinion is worthy of respect.
Some people deserve to be marginalized and excluded. There are many
questions in this world over which rational people can have sensible
confrontations: whether lower taxes stimulate or stagnate growth;
whether abortion is immoral; whether the ’60s were an achievement or a
disaster; whether the universe is motivated by a force for
benevolence; whether the Fonz jumping on water skis over a shark was
cool or lame. Whether Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare is not one of
these questions.

"Unfortunately, the nonquestion of Shakespeare’s identity is now being
asked on billboards all over the world. It will raise debate where
none should be. It will sow confusion where there is none. Somebody
here is a fraud, but it isn’t Shakespeare."

This is about the best summary of the SAQ I've ever seen.

TR